The New York Office of Cannabis Management held a Control Board Meeting today that was broadcast online. Two months ago, we provided an update regarding the state’s strong growth in adult-use sales, and this extremely bullish story has become even more bullish. Sales growth is very strong, and the state is on track to do $1 billion in 2024:

John Kagia, Director of Policy, who was sharing the slides with the Board, pointed out that the November strength was overstated due to there being 5 weeks in November after 4 in September and October. He suggested that the $919 million year-to-date would be boosted in December to over $1 billion. The weekly sales have expanded from $12.9 million to $29.0 in six months. Two months ago, it was $22.4 million per week.

Growth is being driven by more stores and fewer unlicensed stores. In our newsletter in July, when we called the New York cannabis market booming, there were 144 open stores. Now there are now 261. This is a huge increase, but it is still a small number of dispensaries given the large population of the state.

Non-flower sales have expanded over the past two months from 52% of sales to 55%, and the medical cannabis companies, most of which are publicly-held, are the source of 23% of the flower sales.

I am very bullish on New York, but they can do a better job on getting the data out. Many states issue monthly updates and include the data on their websites. New York can do better on this front. Still, this big state has come a long way. Investors should be paying attention.

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

The New York Office of Cannabis Management held a Control Board Meeting today that was broadcast online. Earlier this month, it published an annual report for FY2024, which ended in June, and it shared some data that suggested that September sales fell. In August, sales set a record of $97.4 million, and the annual report shared data for September. The chart suggested that sales were $63.5 million (Figure 1 on Page 9), but it included a footnote that said that the data was as of mid-September. Today’s meeting showed that the full month of September was $84.7 million:

While sales in September did decline by 12% from August, the decline was due to the odd way that the state accounts for sales. John Kagia, Director of Policy, explained during the meeting that September had four weeks, while August had five. He shared several slides, one of which suggested that weekly sales are surging:

The surge since May ties into a stronger effort to close unlicensed dispensaries. Weekly sales have surged 75% since May 25th. We picked up on this three months ago in the NCV weekly newsletter, where we pointed out that New York cannabis was booming.

Three months ago, we reported that there were 144 adult-use stores in the state, and now there are 210. The store growth has been strong both in the NYC and Long Island area, where 94 stores are now open (4 on Long Island), and upstate NY, where there are now 116 open.

In Q3, total adult-use sales reached $250 million and rose 54% sequentially and 357% from a year earlier. The New York market is growing, but it has a lot more room to grow. It is the fourth largest state by population, with about half of the population of California. That state is not exactly booming, but its Q3 total sales were estimated by BDSA to be $1.26 billion, about 5X the level of New York sales. New York is growing strongly, while California sales shrank 1% from a year earlier.

New York continues to offer its consumers a better market, and there are plenty of public companies that are serving it. The public companies dominated the small medical cannabis market, but several are starting to build up their efforts in adult-use. Curaleaf and Green Thumb Industries each operate 3 adult-use stores, while Acreage, Cannabist, Cresco Labs, iAnthus and Vireo don’t operate any yet. MedMen, which is bankrupt no longer operates in the state. Riv Capital owns Etain, and it has 3 adult-use stores now. Pharmacann, which has an investment from Cronos Group, operates 1 too (Verilife).

The Board meeting had other data, including total market share on the production side of 12% for the 9 registered organizations serving the medical program that are currently producing for adult-use. Flower makes up 37% of total sales, while prerolls account for 11%. Non-flower products represent 52%.

I am very bullish on New York, but they can do a better job on getting the data out. Many states issue monthly updates and include the data on their websites. New York can do better on this front. Still, this big state has come a long way. Investors should be paying attention.

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

Each week, Florida’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU), which is part of the state’s Department of Health, releases data on the state’s medical cannabis program, including an active patient count, a qualified physician count, new dispensary approvals and an update for each operator. That data includes the number of dispensaries and the unit sales each week. This is the seventh New Cannabis Ventures article in what will likely be monthly updates. We also published a newsletter about the state in May, suggesting that readers be careful with Florida. This article is based upon the update that was provided this week by the state. Readers who are interested in the data going forward can visit the OMMU update page.

Patient Growth Is Slowing

We last updated on the Florida market a month ago, and the annual growth in patient count had fallen to 4.8% in early September  from 8.4% in late May.  The rate has dropped to a new record low and was 3.9% this past week:

While the number of patients is still increasing, the growth is very low. 886K patients represent 4% of the state’s population. The number of patients has actually slipped recently:

The post-pandemic population boom aided patient growth, and some program improvements have helped excite Florida residents. There has been an increase in dispensaries to 683 from 591 a year ago. This is an increase of 15.6%, which is much faster than the medical cannabis patient growth has been.

Unit Growth Remains Strong

We recently shared that Florida revenue was up only 1.4% from a year earlier in April by the company’s estimate. This was a record low. BDSA released September data, and Florida’s growth picked up a bit again, up 5.2% from a year earlier. This is still quite slow, especially considering patient growth and dispensary growth.

The increased competition and falling prices combined with slightly increasing sales has suggested that unit growth remains strong. In the most recent week, sales of medical cannabis product units with THC fell 1.1% from a year ago. A month ago, it grew 12.6% from a year ago, so this was a major change. Smokeable flower units expanded 10.7% from the week ending 10/04/23.

Conclusion

We warned readers on May 17th regarding the MSOs that are big in Florida, as investors seemed overly optimistic. The entire cannabis market has pulled back since then, and the entire group of MSOs is sharply lower. Three of the four leaders in Florida have declined substantially:

The overall market, as measured by the NCV Global Cannabis Stock Index, has declined by 20.6% since then, and the NCV American Cannabis Operator Index has dropped 27.6%. Three of the Florida 4 have dropped by more than both of these. One that we think will do very well if Florida legalizes for adult-use is Planet 13 (OTC: PLNH) (CSE: PLTH), which recently reported in August its first quarter that included VidaCann results, Q2. Since that mid-May piece, it has dropped less than all of these, falling 2.5%, which is outpacing the overall cannabis sector.

It’s not clear that Florida voters will approve adult-use legalization in November. If they don’t, the market likely will not be happy with a mature medical market that is slowing and  becoming more competitive. If they do, it’s not yet clear that the four largest operators will win going forward. Investors should remain careful in our view with the big Florida operators.

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

You’re reading this week’s edition of the New Cannabis Ventures weekly newsletter, which we have been publishing since October 2015. The newsletter includes unique insight to help our readers stay ahead of the curve as well as links to the week’s most important news. We no longer send these by email as we did in the past, but we post this and all of the newsletters on our website here.

Friends,

A year ago, I wrote that the cannabis sector was still in a bear market. Since then, the New Cannabis Ventures Global Cannabis Stock Index has increased slightly, rising 1.2% since 10/6. This is less than what cash earned, and it is a lot less than the rally in the S&P 500. Here is what the action has looked like over the past year:

Our caution was right initially, as the index plunged in October. After that early weakness, our outlook picked up, though we remained cautious. It all depended upon rescheduling in our view, and that was not a done deal. In late April, the market peaked at 11.72. This was when the DEA confirmed that it was going to move to reschedule cannabis, which would wipe out the 280E taxation.

On that spike, we pointed out in early May that it was not a good idea to bet big on cannabis stocks yet. Our bullishness in Q4 and our caution in Q2 have played out well. So, what is a cannabis investor supposed to do now?

We have been a lot more bullish on cannabis stocks, but rescheduling is not yet a done deal. The DEA announced in late August that there will be a hearing on December 2nd. The market crumble that took place made little sense, and it has been stabilizing since then.

As I look to 2025, I continue to believe that the elimination of 280E taxation, if it happens as is expected, should be a catalyst for MSOs, but there are other issues weighing on the market. For instance, we will have  new President. It seems clear that Harris is for reform that could improve the industry, and Trump has been speaking favorably. Of course, the control of the House of Representatives and the Senate could change. I don’t view the federal government as likely to have a big impact on cannabis beyond any changes to the Farm Act of 2018.

Cannabis remains a state-by-state market, and I continue to believe that New York will grow very strongly. Perhaps California will resume its growth too. A state that I worry about is Florida, as voters may not provide the 60% yes votes to legalize for adult-use, which would be horrible, as the state’s medical program is seeing patient growth slow and dispensary growth pick up. Not surprisingly, prices have been going down in Florida. I believe that investors (and some analysts) have an overly optimistic view on the outcome for the stocks if it passes.

Issues at the state level are quite important, but another thing that has been weighing on MSOs has been executive turnover. Among the nine Tier 1 and Tier 2 names, Ascend Wellness, AYR Wellness and Curaleaf have made CEO changes recently.

I continue to believe that cannabis investors should seek opportunities across the market and not exclusively in the sub-sector of MSOs. My model portfolio at 420 Investor has an overweight in MSOs (34% weighting), so I am bullish, but I am also very bullish on some ancillary stocks (28% weighting, which is under the index exposure). I believe that the MSOs will see their businesses improve if 280E gets eliminated, and this should result in more purchases of goods and services that ancillary companies provide. I don’t believe that Canadian LPs will benefit at all from rescheduling, but I do like some of them too (37% weighting in two names).

Above I pointed out that the market is marginally higher than it was a year ago, but perhaps the calendar isn’t the right thing to use. Today is the Jewish New Year (Happy Rosh Hashanah!), and measuring from the 11.11 close in the Global Cannabis Stock Index on 9/15/23, the end of the last Jewish year (5784), the index has dropped 23%.  Let’s all hope that the DEA goes forward with rescheduling soon!

New Cannabis Ventures publishes curated articles as well as exclusive news. Here is what we published this past week:

Exclusives

Cannabis Stocks Move Higher in September

To get real-time updates download our free mobile app for Android or Apple devices, like our Facebook page, or follow Alan on Twitter. Share and discover industry news with like-minded people on the largest cannabis investor and entrepreneur group on LinkedIn.

Use the suite of professionally managed NCV Cannabis Stock Indices to monitor the performance of publicly-traded cannabis companies within the day or over longer time-frames. In addition to the comprehensive Global Cannabis Stock Index, we offer the Canadian Cannabis LP Index, the American Cannabis Operator Index and the Ancillary Cannabis Index.

View the Public Cannabis Company Revenue & Income Tracker, which ranks the top revenue producing cannabis stocks.

Stay on top of some of the most important communications from public companies by viewing upcoming cannabis investor earnings conference calls.

Discover upcoming new listings with the curated Cannabis Stock IPOs and New Issues Tracker.

Sincerely,

Alan

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

Each week, Florida’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU), which is part of the state’s Department of Health, releases data on the state’s medical cannabis program, including an active patient count, a qualified physician count, new approvals and an update for each dispensary. That data includes the number of dispensaries and the unit sales each week. This is the sixth New Cannabis Ventures article in what will likely be monthly updates. We also published a newsletter about the state in May, suggesting that readers be careful with Florida. This article is based upon the update that was provided this week by the state. Readers who are interested in the data going forward can visit the OMMU update page.

Patient Growth Is Slowing

We last updated on the Florida market a month ago, and the annual growth in patient count had fallen to 5.3% in early August from 8.4% in late May.  The rate is now at a record low of 4.8%:

While the number of patients is still increasing, the growth is very low. 886K patients represent 4% of the state’s population. The post-pandemic population boom aided patient growth, and some program improvements have helped excite Florida residents. There has been an increase in dispensaries to 674 from 589 a year ago. This is an increase of 14.4%, which is much faster than the medical cannabis patient growth has been.

Unit Growth Remains Strong

We recently shared that Florida revenue was up only 1.4% from a year earlier in April by the company’s estimate. This was a record low. BDSA released August data, and Florida’s growth picked up a bit, just over +4.6% from a year earlier. This is still quite slow.

The increased competition and falling prices combined with slightly increasing sales suggest that unit growth remains strong. In the most recent week, sales of medical cannabis product units with THC grew 12.6% from a year ago, while smokeable flower units expanded 19.0% from the week ending 9/07/23.

Conclusion

We warned readers on May 17th regarding the MSOs that are big in Florida, as investors seemed overly optimistic. The entire cannabis market has pulled back since then, and the entire group of MSOs is sharply lower. The four leaders in Florida have declined substantially:

The overall market, as measured by the NCV Global Cannabis Stock Index, has declined by 25.3% since then, and the NCV American Cannabis Operator Index has dropped 31.8%. Three of the Florida 4 have dropped by more than both of these. One that we think will do very well if Florida legalizes for adult-use is Planet 13 (OTC: PLNH) (CSE: PLTH), which just reported in August its first quarter that included VidaCann results, Q2. Since that mid-May piece, it has dropped less than all of these, falling 5.8%, which is outpacing the overall cannabis sector.

It’s not clear that Florida voters will approve adult-use legalization in November. If they don’t, the market likely will not be happy with a mature medical market that is slowing and  becoming more competitive. If they do, it’s not yet clear that the four largest operators will win going forward. Investors should remain careful in our view with the big Florida operators.

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

You’re reading this week’s edition of the New Cannabis Ventures weekly newsletter, which we have been publishing since October 2015. The newsletter includes unique insight to help our readers stay ahead of the curve as well as links to the week’s most important news. We no longer send these by email as we did in the past, but we post this and all of the newsletters on our website here.

Friends,

I am based in Texas, which has a very poorly structured cannabis industry. The medical program here has only three licensed providers, and two of them are units of larger multi-state operators. The other is a local company that I have visited and follow. The program has improved dramatically since it was introduced, but it is still poorly run and missing a lot. There are very few patients in the Texas medical cannabis, and adult-use for Texans isn’t likely to happen soon.

With that said, I went to my first cannabis event this week right near my house in Houston. The event was sponsored by a company based in South Carolina that sells seltzer that contains THC and CBD derived from industrial hemp. The Farm Act of 2018 legalized industrial hemp cannabinoids at the federal level, but the FDA has not yet weighed in.

My own focus on the cannabis industry began in 2013, which was right ahead of the Cole Memorandum that allowed Colorado and Washington to introduce what their voters had approved in late 2012: adult-use sales in their states. The state-by-state approach has created a lot of challenges, to be sure, but it also allows the industry to evolve. The rules and regulations differ greatly from state to state.

I currently am not focused on any publicly traded companies that operate in industrial hemp exclusively. I used to follow some of them, but it has been a disaster. Of course, investors in state-regulated cannabis companies have endured a lot of pain too. I have been expressing my optimism for them, and the delay in rescheduling does not change my optimism that I have been expressing here. It is still likely to happen and will end 280E taxation, which is a major positive, but it won’t happen as soon as some were hoping now that the DEA has scheduled a hearing in December.

For a while now, I have viewed hemp-based products negatively. My main concerns have been that there are many stores selling them that are unlicensed and not selling products that are tested or that make sense. I am bothered by the many products that come from synthetic CBD and synthetic THC too. I have never had an issue with cannabinoids derived from hemp.

While I am not a fan of gas-station CBD and now more recently THC products, I think the good thing is that it shows that consumers want these products. The media and regulators must explain to consumers about how unregulated cannabinoids can be dangerous. Of course, having regulations raises the price of the product, which can hurt consumers, but consumers of other types of products will often pay up for safer products with other criteria that they like, such as being organic, vegan or light in added sugars.

I have been libertarian in my thinking for more than 40 years now, and I am against over-regulation, but I understand how a total lack of regulation can lead to problems too. I am very happy to see regulators stepping up to protect their consumers in California and New York within the licensed cannabis programs, and I am happy to see Texas reaching out to stop CBD stores that aren’t regulated.

People who have been focused on the industry saw the excitement over the Farm Bill of 2018 and how poorly it played out for operators and investors in CBD companies. The state-regulated cannabis operators have been in a bear market for over three years now, and there is too much competition within it and a lack of new big opportunities for them. There seems to be a war between them and some industrial hemp operators to reach consumers, and I think that the ability to sell cannabis products, even if derived from industrial hemp, expands the market so much that state-regulated cannabis companies should think about entering those markets. More importantly, they are thinking about it and, to a small extent, doing it. This week, the Ayr Wellness CEO did an interview at Seeking Alpha with Rena Sherbill, and he discussed how his company is looking very closely.

The MSOs all talk about building brands, but the current system of state-by-state production and sales makes it difficult to build a national brand. Selling in dispensaries only is a big challenge. It would be helpful if they could sell their brands in restaurants and non-cannabis stores. Ben Kovler at Green Thumb Industries wrote to the CEO of publicly-traded Boston Beer Company about the two companies potentially merging. I don’t see that merger happening, but it would be good for GTI if it could do so and retain the NASDAQ listing.

I began to give this topic of industrial hemp cannabinoids more thought earlier this year when I saw that a Houston-based company had merged with a craft beer maker. Then, this company cut distribution deals with a large Texas-based wine chain that I know very well and respect a great deal and a Mexican restaurant chain to sell their beverages that contain THC from industrial hemp. I discussed with the CEO the legal status and learned that it is currently legal in the state.

I know that many of our readers are investors in the space, and I have no investment conclusions today. I see a big potential threat developing, but I also see an opportunity for the MSOs to invest in industrial hemp cannabinoid production or to buy established brands. I am investing my time and thought into better understanding the hemp-derived cannabinoids industry. One big company, which happens to be publicly traded, seems to be excited: Anheuser Busch. They are quietly pushing CBD and THC products here in Texas. It’s not now or likely to be a big part of their revenue any time soon, but I like to see these established companies diversify into cannabis.

New Cannabis Ventures publishes curated articles as well as exclusive news. Here is some of the most important content from this week:

Exclusive

To get real-time updates download our free mobile app for Android or Apple devices, like our Facebook page, or follow Alan on Twitter. Share and discover industry news with like-minded people on the largest cannabis investor and entrepreneur group on LinkedIn.

Use the suite of professionally managed NCV Cannabis Stock Indices to monitor the performance of publicly-traded cannabis companies within the day or over longer time-frames. In addition to the comprehensive Global Cannabis Stock Index, we offer the Canadian Cannabis LP Index, the American Cannabis Operator Index and the Ancillary Cannabis Index.

View the Public Cannabis Company Revenue & Income Tracker, which ranks the top revenue producing cannabis stocks.

Stay on top of some of the most important communications from public companies by viewing upcoming cannabis investor earnings conference calls.

Discover upcoming new listings with the curated Cannabis Stock IPOs and New Issues Tracker.

Sincerely,

Alan

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email

Each week, Florida’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU), which is part of the state’s Department of Health, releases data on the state’s medical cannabis program, including an active patient count, a qualified physician count, new approvals and an update for each dispensary. That data includes the number of dispensaries and the unit sales each week. This is the fifth New Cannabis Ventures article in what we expect will provide updates every month. We also published a newsletter about the state in May, suggesting that readers be careful with Florida. This article is based upon the update that was provided this week by the state. Readers who are interested in the  data going forward can visit the OMMU update page.

Patient Growth Is Slowing

We last updated on the Florida market a month ago, and the annual growth in patient count had fallen to 5.8% in early July from 8.4% in late May.  The rate is now at a record low of 5.3%:

While it is still increasing, the growth is very low. 885K patients represents 4% of the state’s population. The post-pandemic population boom aided patient growth, and some program improvements have helped excite Florida residents. There has been an increase in dispensaries to 661 from 586 a year ago. This is an increase of 12.8%, which is faster than the medical cannabis patient growth has been.

Unit Growth Remains Strong

We recently shared that Florida revenue was up only 1.4% from a year earlier in April by the company’s estimate. This was a record low. BDSA released May and June data, and Florida’s growth picked up a bit, just over +5% from a year earlier for both months. It did pick up in July to 8.3%. Still, this is not really that rapid of growth.

The increased competition and falling prices combined with slightly increasing sales suggest that unit growth remains strong. In the most recent week, sales of medical cannabis product units with THC grew 9.1% from a year ago, while smokeable flower units expanded 13.0% from the week ending 8/10/23.

Conclusion

We warned readers on May 17th regarding the MSOs that are big in Florida. The entire cannabis market has pulled back since then, and the entire group of MSOs is sharply lower. The four leaders in Florida have declined substantially:

The overall market, as measured by the NCV Global Cannabis Stock Index, has declined by 22.2% since then, and the NCV American Cannabis Operator Index has dropped 29.2%. Three of the Florida 4 have dropped by more than both of these. One that we think will do very well if Florida legalizes for adult-use is Planet 13 (PLNH), which just reported its first quarter that included VidaCann results. Since that mid-May piece, it has dropped less than Curaleaf, AYR Wellness and Verano, dropping 20.7%.

It’s not clear that Florida voters will approve adult-use legalization in November. If they don’t, we think the market will not be happy with a mature medical market that is slowing and competitive. If they do, it’s not yet clear that the four largest operators will win going forward. Investors should remain careful in our view with the big Florida operators.

Based in Houston, Alan leverages his experience as founder of online community 420 Investor, the first and still largest due diligence platform focused on the publicly-traded stocks in the cannabis industry. With his extensive network in the cannabis community, Alan continues to find new ways to connect the industry and facilitate its sustainable growth. At New Cannabis Ventures, he is responsible for content development and strategic alliances. Before shifting his focus to the cannabis industry in early 2013, Alan, who began his career on Wall Street in 1986, worked as an independent research analyst following over two decades in research and portfolio management. A prolific writer, with over 650 articles published since 2007 at Seeking Alpha, where he has 70,000 followers, Alan is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and a frequent source to the media, including the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox Business, and Bloomberg TV. Contact Alan: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Email